Pages top

Social Icons

Mommy Diaries: Alynne

My beautiful friend, Alynne is up today.

Being present.

Awhile back, I attended a PD course called “The Challenge of
Real Life Balance”. After the course, I
have come to realize that everyone’s life is busy, besides trimming some
unnecessary busy-ness out and applying the “it’s ok to say NO method”, for the
most part you can’t change being busy. But
what the course taught me is that it's what you do with the time you have that makes
you succeed and feel good about yourself and the roles you have. It is a simple concept, but can be applied to
so many different roles, and that is to be present.

So what does that mean – be present. From what I understand it is what you are
doing at that time, to focus on that. I guess the days of multi-tasking are
gone, and uni-tasking is the way to go. I
sat down and looked at my life and figuring out how I can be present. So for example, at work, I am present in my
job, prioritizing my tasks, setting deadlines, making lists, evaluating work
load, focusing – getting the work done.
The harder I work and the more present I am, the less overtime I have to
put in and the more successful I feel. I
feel taking the time to truly be present in my children’s lives gives them the
feeling of worth, love and belonging. It
makes them feel worthy of my time and they are not competing with my cell phone for
attention. It helps me feel like I am
succeeding in being a caring mother and being there for my kids. Here are some examples of how I kick ass at
being present in their lives.

Being a working mom, I have limited time with my kids during
the week. I try every day, even if just
for 15 minutes, half an hour, to be completely present with my kids. The tv is off, my phone is on vibrate, I am
not folding laundry, doing dishes. I am
being present – listening, engaging, focusing, playing, laughing, making
memories. It is my favorite and most
valuable time of the day.

One of the hockey rinks Karter plays at there is a saying on
the boards which reads "Pay attention - your kids are watching". It makes me so sad to see one of Karter's
team mates score a goal and look up to see their parent(s) on their cell phones. The parent(s) are there at the game, but not
present. I will rarely take out my phone
during a game. I want to be there,
watching Karter score a goal, so when he looks up he knows I saw it and am
cheering for him. And yes, in order for
me to get that focus, if that means Bentley will eat a whole bag of skittles
and box of popcorn so she will sit nicely next to me, so be it.

Life is busy, I get that.
I am not saying any time we have with the kids is 100% devoted to
them. I don’t think that would be
possible or even healthy for the kids, and I would have the most unorganized
life I would probably go insane. There
are houses to clean, meals to cook, relationships outside of the household to maintain. It is coming up with the plan to pick a time,
make that time even for just half an hour, and be present with my kiddos. I have no issues, nor feel guilty for having
a house cleaner and someone to help out in our yard. I truly think it is genius, I am gaining that
time back to spend with my kids – invaluable.
So now my house is clean, we can go to the park after supper and
play. And p.s., I leave my cell phone at
home!

We have been pretty lucky that Bentley is a really good
sleeper. She will wake up maybe once or
twice a night but will put herself back to sleep within minutes. We have a video monitor which gives us the
advantage of checking out the situation without having to get out of bed. Heaven!

One night when she was about 1.5 years old, she kept getting
up, I would say about 5 or 6 times over the span of the night. Very out of the ordinary for her. She would call for me, I would check the
monitor and see she is ok, I would tell her over the intercom she is ok and to
go back to bed, and shortly after she would fall back asleep as would I. In the am I went to wake her up. I opened her door, and was instantly taken
back by the smell. She must have thrown
up during the night and was sleeping in it.
Mark entered the room, and instantly ran to the bathroom to throw up, it
smelt that bad. It was caked into her
hair, thick chunks, it was all over her bed, even on the wall. No wonder she was trying to get our attention. She honestly smelt like puke for a week.

You can read Alynne's previous Mommy Diary entries here and here. Her 30 somethings is here and this is what love looks like to her.